content_ocr_temporal_enriched_030_3 (Q1701)

With reference to the range of the bow, the measured mile of Robin Hood and Little John, known by honoured tradition, is as fabulous as the wondrous shooting recounted by Firdusi, the Persian poet, of the heroic Arish, whose arrow sped over five hundred miles. The longest well-authenticated distance for shooting with flight-arrows is about 600 yards, and at 400 yards hazel-rods were frequently cleft by experts. Modern archers have in a few instances shot their arrows over 400 yards. The Turkish Ambassador shot an arrow, from a short Eastern bow of horn, 480 yards at one of the early meetings of the Toxophilite Society. By a statute of Henry VIII. it was forbidden that any man over twenty-four years of age should shoot at a mark nearer than 220 yards with a flight-arrow or 140 yards with a sheaf-arrow.